Trust Issues
by Lilith Mey
Summary: (Sequel to Between the Pages) Circumstances have left Levy able to count the amount of people she trusts on one hand, none of them are men like Gajeel. He's arrogant, he's gruff, and completely infuriating. So why the hell does she find herself wanting to be near him? How can she trust him when he says he'll protect her? How can she trust him with her heart?
1. Chapter 1

Hello again everyone! I'm FINALLY back after so much happening in the last little while. I find it completely ironic that I'm posting on a Monday again. Unfortunately this time I can't promise I'll be posting every week, we all know how untrue that was near the end of the last one. Still I promise it won't be months in between.

Is everyone ready for Gajevy fun?! I know I am! Please remember this is AU, so characters will be similar to, but not completely the same, as they are in the manga/anime. This story will also cover a bunch of different peoples perspectives. I hope you enjoy it.

To all new readers, please check out Between The Pages before starting this one! Some things may not make sense.

The wonderful cover art for this story is by Poki-Grzyb! Check them out on Deviant Art!

Disclaimer: As always, Mashima owns all, I only wish I did.

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"Hi! You've reached Lucy Heartfilia. I'm sorry I didn't get to your call but if you..." Levy hit the end button with more force than necessary, at times like this she missed flip phones. It was way more satisfying to snap that shut than to tap a screen. She looked down at her phone and counted the number of times she'd tried to reach Lucy in the last three weeks, 56. Was that excessive? Maybe... but then again maybe not. Lucy never went out of contact this long, least of all with her. Not only was Levy her publicist but she was her best friend too.

The first week hadn't been a big deal, Lucy usually needed a period to herself to recharge after a book tour. Levy knew she usually binge watched the shows she had missed while away. The second week, Levy had started worrying. She hadn't even gotten a text about something that had happened on one of those shows. That's when she started calling, and having those calls go to voicemail. Since then she'd called a couple times a day, all with the same result.

Going by her apartment hadn't yielded any results, nothing inside had been moved or taken, the only thing missing was her purse. That wasn't unusual though because if she'd gone somewhere she'd need it right? So why hadn't she called? Levy hadn't talked to the police about her friend going missing yet, Lucy was too public a figure for it to stay quiet and she didn't want to cause a panic in case the woman had just gone away for a while and forgot to charge her phone. Instead Levy had hired a Private Investigator, but so far he hadn't found any trace of her. No security cam footage, no credit card usage, nothing.

Levy was at her wits end, she had one more place to try, one more place to look before she finally gave in and contacted the police. She had been berating herself for not thinking of it sooner. Cana, the fortune teller or whatever she was. Levy approached the shop and found herself hesitating by the door. She had never believed in this sort of thing, life defined by the stars and seeing the future, but Lucy had found some sort of comfort here. Levy had never met the woman Lucy spoke highly of before, she wondered if she was as old and warty as she pictured.

Opening the door, Levy heard the little tinkle of a bell above her head and as she stepped through she was assaulted by incense. She wrinkled her nose at the smell and had to hold her breath to stop a sneeze. From the back of the place came a woman with brown hair, long to her mid back and wearing... wow was she really wearing a bikini top?

"Can I help you?" The woman asked.

"I'm looking for Cana Alberona, the psychic." Levy said, still looking the woman over. She had a tattoo of some sort on her lower stomach, what was that? She couldn't tell.

"Well you've found her." Cana looked Levy over the same way she was looking at her, which made Levy blush a bit. At least she wasn't warty.

"I'm here about Lucy, Lucy Heartfilia. She's missing and I wondered if just maybe you know where she is? It's a long shot I know but I'm running out of places to look." Levy was bracing herself for the word no, and was nearly knocked over by shock when Cana said.

"I know where she is." She was grinning.

"You... know where she is?" Levy asked. "Where?!"

"I can't tell you where she is, but I can take you to her if you want." Cana offered.

"Of course I want you to take me to her! It's been three weeks and I'm loosing my mind wondering if she's safe." Levy said through gritted teeth.

"She's fine, I'll bet having the time of her life. Wait I have something for you." Cana turned around and disappeared for a moment before returning with Lucy's purse. "She left this here the night she came to see me, I suppose you're as good a person as any to give this to."

Levy reached for the bag and looked accusingly up at the psychic. "You better not have hurt her."

Cana didn't take offence, instead she rolled her eyes. "Lucy is my friend too, I'd no sooner hurt her than you would."

Levy marched up to the woman, she was several inches shorter and it didn't have the frightening effect she wished it would. "Then you take me to her, if you know where she is. I have my doubts about that, but I want to know for sure."

"We'll leave in the morning then. It's a bit of a distance to where she is so make sure you put together some clothes and leave pets with someone else if you have any. We'll be gone for a while. Oh and grab some of Lucy's clothes too, she left rather abruptly." Cana suggested.

"Just where the hell did you take her?" Levy asked incredulously.

"You'll see." Cana said with a grin. "Come back tomorrow for ten, we'll leave shortly after alright?"

"If I leave, you're not going to disappear right? Should I call the cops and tell them you were the last person to see her?" Levy said straight faced.

Cana sighed, "I didn't kidnap her, just showed her the way."

Levy considered the woman for a few minutes before she nodded. "I'll be back for ten. If you're not here..." She let the threat linger as she left.

She stopped by Lucy's house first and grabbed some clothing before going home and packing some of her own stuff. Levy didn't pack a suitcase, opting instead for a shoulder bag like she took on tours. A few pairs of shirts and pants, socks, underwear; wash and repeat. She shoved one of Lucy's books into her bag as well, being her publicist she never went anywhere without at least one of them. Afterwards Levy went across the hall and made sure the neighbours would feed her cat, Pantherlilly.

It took a while before she could fall asleep, she spent most of the night worrying that the Alberona woman had done something to Lucy. Then wondered just where she was that Levy couldn't be told about it. When she finally hit dreamland it was almost dawn.

Right at ten the next morning, Levy was knocking on Cana's door. The woman opened it smiling and locked the door right after she was inside. "Follow me."

Levy followed her and they left the main room, heading into the back. After ascending a flight of stairs and she was surprised to see a completely normal looking apartment. Turning to Cana she said, "So... that place downstairs is all an act?"

"People come to a psychic and expect the mystical, so I give them that experience. It's a little... outlandish to me but it pays my bills." Cana said with a shrug.

"So you're not really a psychic then." Levy said accusingly.

"I never said that." Cana grinned and led her to a closet door near the bedrooms, she pulled out a key and inserted it into the lock. "The first time I did this I was skeptical, but when a spirit comes down from the heavens and offers you a key, you don't say no."

"A spirit? What are you..." Levy's questions were cut off when Cana opened the door and it wasn't a closet, no it definitely wasn't a closet. It was... moving swirls of black and blue and... space? Levy could only stare at it.

"I know right? That's the same look I had." Cana looked close to laughing. "Step through the door and you'll be taken to Lucy. I can't promise you'll be right next to her but fairly close by. I'll meet you there and we'll find her together, okay?"

Levy looked up at the woman, her mouth had yet to close. Cana sighed and nudged her towards the door. Levy walked slowly and stuck her hand into the doorway, watching it disappear. Quickly she pulled it back and was relieved to see it all in one piece. Glancing up at Cana, who was rolling her eyes, she stepped forward into the closet and felt her stomach lurch.

When she opened her eyes again she was standing in a hallway, but not the one she had just been in. No this one was wooden; floor, walls and ceiling. Looking around she saw a number of doors and from one end she could hear voices and laughter. Where the hell was she? She started to walk slowly down the hall, peering into rooms as she passed by. Cana said Lucy was somewhere nearby right? Opening one door she saw a man and a woman laying in what looked to be an infirmary. They were both bandaged nearly head to toe. What was wrong with them? Levy's curiosity got the better of her and she started to walk into the room, but as she did so her arm was grabbed and she was yanked back into the hallway.

Spinning around she came face to face with a giant of a man, he had to be at least six foot five. There were piercings in his ears, eyebrows, along his nose and under his lip. Why did he need so much metal in his face? The look on he gave her wasn't welcoming, and in a harsh voice he demanded. "Who the hell are you?"

Levy's back was immediately up and she glared right back at him. "I'm Levy, who the hell are you?"

"None of your damn business, what are you doing here? Spying?" He accused, his grip tightened on her arm.

Levy flinched and tried to pry his fingers away from her skin. "A spy? What the hell would I be spying on? Let me go, you're hurting me."

"Last time we found someone wandering around in here that didn't belong, we ended up with chickens, everywhere. It took us a week to catch them all. Are you with Sabertooth? Trying to get us back for putting soap in the swimming pool?" He demanded.

"I don't have any idea what the hell you're talking about. Cana sent me here and I was just trying to find her, now let me go! You're hurting my arm!" Levy demanded again.

"Cana? Right, she hasn't been back here in months." He scoffed at her.

"Why would I lie? She told me she'd meet me here so we can find my friend." Levy was getting angry now, she tried even harder to get him to release her.

"We'll see." He started dragging her along behind him, towards the voices and the laughter she had heard. He pulled her into a large room, tables and booths set up with dozens of people enjoying food, drink and each others company. He pulled her over to one end of the large hall and thrust her forward. He was a bit surprised to see Cana standing there, but that didn't mean she wasn't still a spy. "I found her wandering around the infirmary. She says she knows you."

Gajeel smirked as the little woman glared at him, then watched as her face turned to one of shock when her eyes fell on Lucy. The two of them started some ear splitting screeching, apparently knowing each other. As Lucy introduced the girl called Levy to all of them, she looked completely disbelieving. It was irritating that she'd found out all their names and was looking at them like they were... some sort of side show.

"Just who exactly are we?" Gajeel demanded, not understanding why she showed such shock. Her explanation however, had everyone questioning her sanity. She seriously expected them to believe they weren't real? That they were characters from a book?

Levy pulled a book out from her bag, the title read "When Ice Melts." The sight of it sent Lucy into a panic and the two of them started arguing. Gajeel had had enough and wanted to know just what exactly was in this book. Stepping forward he grabbed it out of Levy's hands and began to read.

"What's the matter with you? Ever since you joined the guild you've been following me around, declaring your love for me. Don't you get it Juvia? I don't like you." As soon as Gajeel hit Juvia's name, his speech had slowed. He looked up at the newly married couple, whose faces were slack with astonishment, their eyes fixed on the book, and then their gazes shifted back up to where Lucy stood. She looked nervous, panicked.

The resulting explanation as to how she knew such an intimate detail of Grey and Juvia's history was one Gajeel found a bit hard to believe. Still... it did explain a lot of things. Book characters huh? Wait, she hadn't finished the series? Hearing she had written about all the married couples in the guild felt a bit like having a noose around his neck, and she still wasn't done?

"You said four books so far and you're working on a fifth, who's the fifth one about?" He was trying to sound nonchalant about it, but he didn't know what he'd do if she said his name. It was a huge relief when she said Salamander's name instead. He looked over at the little blue haired woman and wondered what she was feeling through this. She looked like she was trying to come to terms with it all, for Lucy's sake more than anything.

Soon the conversation turned to what Cana had brought Levy here to do, and she agreed to help any way she could. A trip to the capital? A massive library? Levy could definitely get on board with that. She and Lucy left the guild soon after that so they could all get some rest.

Lucy led Levy through town on the way to her and Natsu's place. Levy was looking all around at everything, comparing it to back home. Both this town and the city she was from held the same name, Magnolia, but they were vastly different. Here it was quiet, there was the sound of people's voices, their laughter, dogs barking and children playing. Back home it was all car horns, sirens, people yelling angrily; it was peaceful here. She liked it a lot, but she knew she'd eventually miss the bustle of her own Magnolia.

As the two of them reached the edge of the town and started heading into the woods, Levy asked with some surprise. "You guys live out here?"

Lucy nodded, "It's better if Natsu isn't in the center of town. People, and buildings, are safer that way." She was grinning.

Levy thought back to the books and all the battles Natsu had been in. Somehow every time he managed to bring at least one building to the ground. "You're probably right."

When the little house came into sight, Levy immediately thought it was perfect for Lucy. She had always been the type to live in a quiet place, somewhere homey and warm. This place was just that. Entering the house only reaffirmed what she'd already thought. Both women suddenly heard meowing and looked down to see a little blue cat, with wings.

Lucy reached down to pick him up and began to croon while Levy took the time to get over her shock. "That's Happy right? The cat you wrote about, who inspired all this?"

Lucy nodded, the cat was now staring at Levy. She pet him briefly before he flew over and curled up on the bed. Looking around the room her eyes fell on some laundry and she suddenly remembered what was in the bag she'd brought. "Oh! I almost forgot, I brought you some clothes." She dug into the bag and pulled them out.

Lucy's eyes went wide and she squealed in delight, hugging Levy and then the clothes. "Thank you! It's so nice to have something that's my own from home!" She put the clothes away and then moved to sit cross legged on the bed. Levy followed and sat across from her.

"I missed you Luce, you were gone a long time." Levy said, smiling at her friend.

"I missed you too Lev, two months is a long time to be away from you when I'm so used to talking to you every day." She was idly stroking Happy's fur.

Levy's expression changed to one of shock. "Two months? That's how long you've been here?"

"Yeah, why?" Her expression was confused before she asked. "How long have I been gone for you?"

"Only three weeks!" Lucy's face showed surprise, but before she could say anything Levy spoke again, her logical brain at work. "Well I guess it makes sense that time wouldn't flow the same between the two worlds. What took 8 years at home is only something like 4 or 5 here. I just figured the flow would have been the other way... huh."

Lucy could see Levy's brain working and knew if she wanted to talk to her friend she'd have to break her out of it. "How's Lilly? Still getting into your plants?" She asked, smiling as she brought up Levy's cat.

Levy broke into a grin and said, "Yes, I don't know what it is about them but he loves to stick his feet in the dirt. I came home to an absolute mess the other day when he'd apparently stepped in water before the dirt. There was mud everywhere; floors, counters, table, couch, even my bed! He hid for about three hours after I got home because he knew I was mad." Levy laughed, showing it didn't really bother her that much now.

Lucy picked up Happy and held him close to her as her smile faded, "And... him?"

Levy's smile disappeared. Lucy was the only one who knew, the only one she could talk to about it all, so of course she would ask. She still hated thinking about it. "A few phone calls, a flower delivery. A late night door pounding. He's not going away, but at least the attempts are lessening."

"I'm glad, it's one of the things I worried about the most while I was here, among other things." Lucy said, reaching out to take Levy's hand.

Levy squeezed her hand in return and gave her a small smile. "I worried about you too." Both women sat in silence for a moment before Levy said, "Okay, on to lighter topics! Tell me all about Natsu!"

Lucy broke out into a grin and the two of them spent most of the night talking all about Natsu and back home and everything Lucy could think to tell her about the world they were in. They finally went to sleep when there was only a few hours until they had to wake up and make it to the train station. The result was two bleary eyed, half asleep women standing on the platform.

"Well, looks like neither of you got much sleep." Cana said, bright eyed and cheerful. It grated on Levy.

"We haven't seen each other in a while, what did you expect?" Levy snapped.

Cana only laughed in response to her angry reply. "I expected nothing less!"

Before Levy could respond again, her luggage was suddenly snatched from her hand and a deep voice said behind her, "You're hair is sticking up."

She whirled around to see Gajeel standing here, holding both her and Lucy's luggage, staring at her head. Levy's hand flew to her hair and she found that the back was indeed sticking up. Turning to face Cana and Lucy she demanded, "Why didn't you guys tell me!"

Lucy looked up at her with tired eyes, "I didn't notice."

Cana was laughing, "It was funny, I wanted to see how long before you realized."

Levy grit her teeth and turned back around to thank Gajeel, but he was already walking back towards the train. As she watched him go she wondered at his sudden change. Yesterday he had been calling her a spy, dragging her around and just generally glaring. Today he was carrying her luggage and telling her about messy hair. The man seemed to be a walking contradiction.

Soon enough their whole group was boarding the train. Thankfully it wasn't very crowded so they were able to take over one complete train car. Their stuff ended up spread out everywhere and it was a lot better than being cramped into a couple rows.

Just before the train departed Levy looked around and noticed that Gajeel wasn't among them. She asked Lucy about it and her friend stood up.

"Thanks for reminding me, I need to go check on him before the train leaves." She started to walk away but Levy stopped her.

"Check on him? What do you mean?"

Lucy grinned, "Dragon slayers, one trained by actual dragons, get motion sickness, very badly. Gajeel has his own train car and staff to help him whenever he travels. I just like to check on him and make sure he's okay. I know he doesn't need me to, but I think he kind of likes that I do, that someone who's not getting paid to look after him actually cares."

Levy wasn't so sure about that, if she got motion sick that badly she wouldn't want anyone around her. She wasn't convinced the giant of a man named Gajeel was any different. While Lucy was gone she got herself comfortable, the two of them were taking up a couple benches to themselves. The train started to move and Lucy came back a few minutes later, there was laughter in her eyes.

"What?" Levy asked, smiling in response.

"It just amazes me how fast the motion sickness takes over. One second he's big and surly, then the train moves and he's laying prone on the bed, green in the face." Lucy couldn't stop a giggle.

"It happens that fast? Doesn't it usually take a few minutes of movement?" Levy asked in surprise.

"I don't know how it is for most people, but for both Natsu and Gajeel it's the very second the train moves. I've heard it's the same for the guys from Sabertooth too." Lucy sat down opposite her friend and pulled out a book.

"That must suck, didn't you say this was a three day trip?" Levy asked.

"It is, the staff feeds him, helps him to the bathroom every so often, but generally he just lays there. That's why I go check on him, and feed him sometimes." Lucy said.

"That's very nice of you." Levy smiled, it was so like Lucy.

"That's what friends do!" She smiled in return.

Lucy spent a little while reading while Levy watched out the window. The scenery was mostly the same as back home, but every once in a while it would show her a tree, an animal, a flower, that was different from anything she had every seen before. Jellal was the one Levy generally asked for an explanation, he was soft spoken and didn't seem to mind helping her identify everything. Levy thought back to how he was in Lucy's book before he and Erza got together. His personality was vastly different, for the better. He and Erza balanced each other out, it was amazing what love an acceptance could do. Levy found herself envious of their relationship.

Pretty soon everyone was crowded into those two little rows, each one taking turns describing something from this world to Levy. They only stopped when Grey demanded lunch, everyone could hear his stomach growling. The meal was a lively affair, now it was Lucy, Cana and Levy's turn to tell them all about the Magnolia they came from. At one point Lucy disappeared to check on Gajeel, Levy found herself counting the minutes she was gone.

The rest of the day passed quickly, and soon everyone was spread out on the seats for bed. Levy tried to sleep, but she found she couldn't. She'd gotten so much information today she was on overload. Considering how little sleep she'd gotten the night before she should be utterly exhausted, but that was the way her mind worked, it loved new things and she couldn't stop herself from analyzing every bit of new information.

Giving up on trying to sleep she decided to explore the train. There was something eerie about walking through a train at night, the only sounds the clicking of the tracks. Levy didn't mind though, it was nice to have some time alone. Stepping through one door she found another train car, there weren't that many people on it and most were sleeping. Another door led to a dining car, Levy was surprised to find one since neither of their meals had been eaten here. She wondered if she'd be able to convince the group to eat here sometime.

The next door she went through brought her up short, it wasn't a normal train car. It had plush couches and a table and chairs, she could see a bathroom off one side of it. Then there was the bed, huge and centered on the wall opposite the door. So this was a sleeper car. Movement on the bed startled her.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't realize the room was occupied." She started to exit the room when a familiar voice stopped her.

"That you... shrimp?" The gravelly voice asked.

Gajeel, so this was his train car. It suddenly dawned what he'd called her and in a sharp voice she said, "My name is Levy."

"Come to... see the big dragon slayer... helpless?" He asked on a groan. He suddenly rolled to the side of the bed and lifted a bucket, bringing up whatever was in his stomach.

Levy came forward and found a glass of water, once he was finished she offered it to him. Their eyes met while he took slow sips from the glass to wash the taste out of his mouth.

"I couldn't sleep so I was exploring the train, I didn't come here with the purpose of seeing you indisposed." Levy said in a quiet voice.

"Sure, Lucy probably told you all about... the sick dragon slayer and you just had to... see it for yourself." He didn't even thank her for the water.

Levy set down the glass and stood up, annoyed now. "I told you, I was exploring the train."

"Go away shrimp..." He rolled away from her, breathing deeply.

With a frustrated noise, Levy made her way towards the door. She had a few choice words on the tip of her tongue but they disappeared the moment a whisper came from the bed.

"Your hair looks better by the way... Like sapphires."

Levy had no idea how to respond to that, heat stole up her throat and into her cheeks. She quickly closed the door and went back to where the others were all still sleeping. If she wasn't fully awake before, she was now. The man was a walking contradiction and she had no idea how to handle that. Mean one minute, nice the next, then back to mean. it was a long time before Levy fell asleep.

The next day everyone was kind of doing their own thing until Juvia came in and declared she'd found a room with tables and games. Everyone agreed to go have some fun there. During one lively game, Lucy slipped away, it was time to give Gajeel some lunch.

"How are you feeling?" Lucy asked as she entered the room.

"You know... how I'm feeling..." Gajeel grumbled at her. He'd already been sat up by some of the train workers and the soup was sitting on the table beside his bed.

"I do know, but I always hope you feel a bit better." Lucy replied, sitting in front of him on the bed before picking up the soup.

Gajeel ate a few bites before he finally asked, "The shrimp... is a good friend... of yours?"

"My best friend, we met in high school but didn't actually start hanging out until she became my publisher. Now she comes on book tours with me and we hang out all the time. By the way, her name is Levy."

"So I'm told..." He muttered, that intrigued Lucy but she didn't ask about it. Another few minutes passed before he spoke again. "Is she always... so grumpy?"

Lucy thought he was referring to the previous morning, she had no idea Levy had come to his room last night. "Only when she's tired usually, but if she's pissed off well... she's pissed off." Lucy grinned.

"She doesn't seem... like the nice type..." He said, shaking his head at the spoonful she had in front of him.

"She's very nice, very intelligent. She just doesn't put up with assholes." She said giving him a pointed look and a grin.

That made Gajeel want to laugh but, he knew that would only lead to him bringing up everything he'd just eaten. Lucy gave him a drink of water and then left him alone with his thoughts. He fell asleep soon after.

Gajeel didn't know how much time had passed when he heard the door to the car open. Was it time for a bathroom run? More food? Whoever was at the door didn't identify themselves. He cracked an eye open and was surprised to see who was standing there. _Levy._

He watched her hesitate in the doorway, as if she couldn't decide whether or not to come further in. He didn't let her know that he was awake, simply waited to see what she would do. With a soft sigh she finally came over to the bed and sat down in the chair usually reserved for Lucy. She didn't seem to know he was watching her, so he just let her watch him. Why had she come? To apologize for last night? To yell some more?

He never got the chance to find out. The train suddenly rocked violently and he felt everything he had eaten shift to his throat. He leaned over the side of the bed and threw up.

All over Levy. _Shit._

"Oh my gosh... Oh my..." She wasn't watching him now, but looking down at herself. She gagged at the smell and the feel of it plastering her clothes to her body. For a second she didn't move, then she ran from the room. Bursting into the bathroom she quickly pulled off all her clothes and jumped into the shower. She scrubbed herself for a good long time before feeling clean again. Once finished she threw out her old clothes and wrapped herself in a towel.

Moving like a ninja back to the car they occupied, Levy was glad she'd been able to convince everyone to eat in the dining car she'd found. No one was there to see her nearly naked as she dressed again. She was angry, embarrassed, and felt so foolish for even going to see him again. She had no idea WHY she'd gone to see him again. Something inside her had wanted to see him, but he'd been asleep. Then he'd...

She shuddered and went back to the dining hall, Lucy noticed her red face and asked her what had happened, Levy refused to give her any answers. She could see that Lucy was puzzled, but there was no way in hell she was confessing that she went to see Gajeel, twice, or that he'd thrown up all over her.

Levy didn't go to see Gajeel again, nor did she ask Lucy about how he was doing, even though she knew her friend was still looking after him. The train arrived at the capital around 10 pm the third day. As they disembarked, Levy didn't really look at everything around her. She was too busy staring at the dragon slayer who was now, amazingly, completely normal again.

How the hell did that work, was he fine the second the train stopped, just like he was an invalid the second it started? Why hadn't he apologized for throwing up all over her. There was no way he could have leaned over and thrown up without knowing she was there. She had been frozen in horror for longer than she cared to think of. He had to have known she was there. So why hadn't he told her he was sorry?

She fumed over this all the way to the hotel. She, Cana and Lucy were all sharing a room, and for the moment she let her anger and frustration drop. The three of them spent a good while talking about home, and then they all slept.

After breakfast in the morning it was time to make their way to the library. Levy could feel her blood humming in excitement. If this place was as big as Lucy said, she didn't doubt she'd be in heaven.

Walking through the streets it felt more like home than Fairy Tail's Magnolia did. There weren't any cars, but the noise felt familiar. It wasn't all laughter and children playing, it was shouts and callings. Levy thought you could probably fit about 100 of those Magnolia's into the capital alone. They finally reached the street the library was on and as they rounded the corner, Levy pulled up short. Juvia slammed into her back and started to apologize, but her words faded into the background.

Before Levy stood the most amazing sight she had ever seen. The library was absolutely massive, the building itself was a work of art. She felt giddy, almost light headed at the thought of going inside. With a bright smile she turned around and found Lucy's smiling face.

"Now THAT, is a library!" She said laughing.

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There it is! The first chapter! I hope you all liked it and continue to read! As always please review! I love to hear from everyone!

Until next time, Ja Ne!


	2. Chapter 2

I am SO sorry it took me this long to update. Between computer issues and life issues, time got away from me. I promise it won't happen again.

SO! I'm thrilled about all of you that have read so far and I can only hope this one becomes as popular as the last.

I changed the cover art but I couldn't find an artist name so if anyone knows please let me know!

Disclaimer: Mashima owns all, I am sad.

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The inside of the library was even better than the beautiful stonework on the outside. Rows and rows of books, spanning three floors! Each one categorized and alphabetized so that one can find whatever they need with ease. Levy stepped in further and breathed deeply. She loved the smell, old mingling with new to create a scent better than anything that came in a bottle. She began to explore the first few rows by the door, taking in subject matter and titles, calling back to Lucy to come see this one or that one. Lucy was smiling and kept trying to get her to focus, but the task was difficult.

"Okay, I'm coming, I've just never seen... Oh my gosh Lucy look at this one! Have you ever seen a tree like that?" Levy was distracted again.

Lucy couldn't help but laugh, eventually having to go over and pry her hands away from a book. "Later, you can read the whole library if you want, right now I need you to focus alright?"

Sorry, sorry, I know I'm getting off track but Luce, LOOK at this place!" She motioned to everything around her, as if everyone would have the same reaction she did.

"I know Lev, it's awesome, but we really need to get to work. So hand out those assignments I know you have, tell us what we need to find." Lucy said, bringing her back to the reason they were here.

"Right, okay. Jellal and Erza, you go into the medical section and find me the anatomy of a dragon. Juvia and Gray, go into the psychology section and find me the behavioral habits of dragons. Lucy," She grinned, "Go into the fantasy section and find me all the made up stuff about dragons you can, there's always a grain of truth to every story. Cana, go to the geographical section and find me a book or two about which types of dragons live where. I'm going to the history section, so when you get your assigned books, meet me there okay?"

Everyone started to move off to the sections Levy had asked them to go when Gajeel spoke, "What about me shrimp? You didn't give me anywhere to look."

Levy stopped and turned around to face him, she tried to look nonchalant but Lucy wasn't fooled, something had happened between the two of them. "I honestly don't care what you do. If you're set on helping, I suggest you join one of your friends." She turned after that rather rude statement and left Cana and Lucy staring after her in shock. It was completely unlike their normally quiet and kind friend to be so... antagonistic. Lucy turned to face Gajeel and said in an accusing voice.

"What did you do?"

Gajeel looked disgruntled, "I didn't do anything, I'm coming with you Cana." He turned to walk away without giving them a backward glance. Damn, he'd hoped she'd believed he was sleeping when he threw up on her. It was obvious that she'd known he was awake, now he was going to have to apologize. It surprised him a little that Lucy didn't already know what he'd done. The shrimp must have been embarrassed and kept it to herself.

He reached the section assigned to Cana a few seconds before she did and started pulling out books at random, hoping the nosy woman wouldn't question him about what happened, but when she sidled up beside him and stared, he knew she wasn't going to let it go.

"So what happened?" She asked him, doing exactly what he did, pulling out a random book and flipping through the pages without even glancing at the cover.

"Nothing happened, let it go Cana." Gajeel said in a rough voice.

"Uh huh, I believe that. Come on, you can tell me, I won't even tell Levy I know." She pressed.

"I said nothing happened!" He growled and slammed a book back into it's place, walking around Cana and going to a different isle.

Cana was grinning behind him, her eyes twinkling. "If you say so, but... an apology might smooth things over." She had to resist the urge to laugh when she heard a growl coming from the next row.

Gajeel really started looking now, dragon locations according to geography. Every so often he'd find a book that seemed helpful and pulled it off the shelf to give to Levy. This part was fairly easy to do, dragons were a big part of the world. Soon enough, his arms were full, so he headed over to where Levy said she'd be. He was the first one there, but she hadn't noticed him approach. He stepped into the next row and watched her through a gap in the books.

She was sitting cross legged on the ground with stacks of books already surrounding her, head bent over the one in her lap. A faint smile appeared on his lips as he realized she was mumbling aloud what she was reading. He'd noticed yesterday how pretty she was, but seeing her like this made him realize she was beautiful. Doing something she loved brought a glow to her face and Gajeel found it hard to look away.

He didn't get to watch her for very long, Lucy approached from the opposite side of the row and captured her attention. He waited a few minutes before making his own appearance and handed over the stack in his arms. She offered him a stiff thank you and he groaned inwardly. Cana was right, he was going to have to apologize.

One by one the others came with some books and Levy neatly stacked them into various piles she already had on the floor. "Alright that's good for today, I need to sift through everything and decide what's relevant. Go... shopping or something."

They had been dismissed. Grinning, Lucy said, "She won't leave until they kick her out, we might as well go enjoy ourselves for a while."

The group left the library and decided to each do their own thing, but meet back up for dinner in a couple hours. It turned out to be a loud affair, the topic was Levy, Lucy and Cana's world. The others were fascinated by it and had so many questions.

"So there's no magic?" Grey asked.

"None, unless you count slight of hand. We have those kinds but there's always a trick to it, it's not truly magic." Lucy explained.

"So there are no guilds?" Erza asked.

Cana shook her head, "There is nothing really like guilds in the world. There are a few... societies... but those aren't generally looked on with favour."

On and on it went, long past when they had finished eating. Gajeel slipped away as Lucy and Cana were trying to explain an airplane to the group, he wasn't into the whole laughing and having fun with friends thing. He found a quiet spot at the bar and drank for a while.

Levy stayed sitting right where she was until the librarian finally made her leave for the night. She went back to the inn, thinking over everything she had read so far. Given all the information on dragons, since they were actually real, it was likely going to take a while to find what they needed. Real life dragons, never in a million years did Levy think she would encounter one. Granted she hadn't yet, but stay here long enough and no doubt she would.

Lucy and Cana weren't back yet, given the noise still coming from the dining room, she assumed they were still there talking and having a good time. Levy didn't feel like joining in right now and since the night was warm and the stars were shining, she sat outside on the balcony and read until they came back. She updated them on things she had found, but none of it was helpful to them yet.

For more than a week they searched, giving everything they could find to Levy. On the one had she found it all fascinating, on the other she was extremely frustrated that they couldn't find what they were looking for. The stacks that everyone brought were getting smaller every day, and hope that they would find something helpful was dwindling.

Levy pulled out a book on the mating habits of dragons, a subject she hadn't really gone too in depth with because she felt the information wasn't likely to be there, and noticed something hidden behind two of the books. She pulled it out and her eyes went wide, it was old, very old. The pages were yellowed and the leather binding was coming apart. On the front showed a man changing into a dragon. Levy gave a cry of triumph and held the book a little tighter.

Everyone came running at the sound of her cry, Erza asked, "What is it, are you alright?"

"I found it! I found the book that's going to tell us everything we need to know!" She held out the very fragile and very old book, it had to be at least 300 years old. "I'm surprised this isn't under glass! I found it hidden behind some books on the mating habits of dragons. Look at the cover!" She moved closer to Lucy so she could look at it, the front held a picture of a man in various stages of changing into a dragon. "This has to hold the key to what you're looking for, the only problem is it's not in English. Do any of you recognize the language?"

Levy held out the book to each person there, none had any knowledge of it, until she got to Gajeel. "I know the language shrimp, it's Draconian." He said, folding his arms across his chest. The blue haired woman looked less than happy that he knew what the language was, for she knew it meant she would be in close contact with the man until the book was completely translated. Still, she was pleased it wasn't a lost cause.

"Well I'm glad, we'll start tomorrow on getting this into something I can understand. If that's agreeable to you of course." Levy said, almost sounding hopeful that he would decline to work with her.

"Sure, meet me in my room after breakfast." Gajeel said without emotion, barely paying her any attention, his mind was elsewhere. The two of them had been cold towards each other for the past week and it bothered him. Working together would be hell if the trend continued. He knew it was his fault, but he wasn't quite sure how to rectify it, an apology was needed, but those weren't his forte. He gave it some thought and suddenly had an idea, it took some searching but he finally found what he wanted.

When Levy came to his room the next morning he showed her to a table that he'd set up with some papers and pens, ready for translating. Hesitating slightly, Gajeel went and got the bag that held his purchase from the night before. He didn't have any idea how to apologize properly, he never did it, so he ended up just dropping the bag on the table saying, "I got this for you."

Levy jumped when something suddenly landed in front of her. Looking up, her eyes narrowed. "What is this?"

"Just open it." He said on a growl.

Levy reached into the bag, still scowling at him. Her hand found something small and elongated, they felt like... "Glasses? You bought me glasses..." Her frown deepened. "Is this some sort of joke? You decided to make things worse? Calling me a nerd by getting me glasses?" She was really starting to get angry when Gajeel interrupted her tirade.

"They're Gale-Force reading glasses, I heard someone talking about them once. They let you read things faster than you normally could. That one's 18 times the speed. I thought it might be useful to you, for this." Gajeel seemed slightly uncomfortable with having done something nice.

Levy was suddenly speechless, this was not what she had been expecting from him when she entered his room this morning. Carefully she put the glasses on and opened a book she had brought with her, suddenly she had read everything on that page. She flipped to the next and instantly knew what was on it. A smile spread across her face and she began to leaf through the entire thing, finishing it in only a few minutes.

"These are amazing." She smiled up at Gajeel. "Thank you."

He folded his arms across his chest and shifted slightly. "You're welcome. Can we forget about the train now?"

Levy laughed lightly, "I suppose we can, I should have guessed apologies weren't the norm for you."

"Yeah, well, I did puke on you. For that I guess I'll apologize. Don't get used to it though." He said as he plopped down in the seat beside her.

"I won't get my hopes up." She said with a smile. Knowing he'd gone to all this trouble just to apologize to her made her soften towards him. Levy wondered if his gruff tendencies were all an act, for some reason she wanted to find out.

"So, how do you want to do this?" Gajeel asked, reaching for the book.

Levy grabbed the book away from him quickly, giving him a small glare, suddenly all business. "You have to be very careful, this thing is old. You can't just pick it up and flip through the pages. We shouldn't even be touching this without gloves, but I don't think those exist here."

Gajeel scowled at her, but he pulled his hand back. "Fine, I won't just pick it up and flip through the pages. Now how do you want to do this? Do I just read it and you copy it down?"

Levy nodded, "That's the jist of it. The language might not exactly translate perfectly into English so we'll have to try and work out what each sentence means. It's not going to be a quick thing, likely some pages or words won't be readable anymore either. You still up for this?"

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't. I'm doing this for Lucy, she's going crazy not knowing where he is, if he's okay." Gajeel said, carefully taking the book and opening it.

Levy looked a little surprised he even cared about her best friend. "You're doing this so Lucy doesn't worry anymore?"

"Well that and if the dragon is still in control, who knows what kind of trouble he's getting into." He started to read the words on the page, then went back and read them out loud, effectively ending the conversation about his reasons for being here, for helping.

His explanation wasn't something Levy had been prepared to hear, it threw her off for a minute, but she soon got back to the task at hand and they spent the morning working on the translations. She had been right about it not translating well into English, some of the sentences were like brain teasers.

"Okay, this one says, The dragon shall have skin of rocks, teeth as knives, eyes of fire." Gajeel read.

"Alright, a description of what someone like Natsu will look like once transformed. Tell me about when he changed." Levy said, putting her head on her hand, turning towards him.

Gajeel was momentarily distracted by the grey in her eyes, but he cleared his throat and sat back heavily in the chair, folding his arms across his chest. An unconsciously protective gesture. "Horns, scales, red eyes, tail, claws. Basically everything a dragon has."

"Alright, so we can assume 'skin of rocks' means scales, 'teeth as knives' would be fangs and 'eyes of fire' would mean red pupils. See? Not so hard." She smiled and began to write.

Gajeel couldn't resist teasing her a bit. "So easy right? Then how about the first page? You still don't have any idea what that means."

Levy stopped writing and shot him a fulminating stare. "I'll figure it out. I just need some time to think."

Gajeel smirked, watching as she turned back to the translation and stared at it with a mutinous expression. She had spent a full thirty minutes trying to work it out this morning before she got frustrated and told him to read something else. He could tell she hated to be stumped like that, and he knew it would be fun to bring it up as they went through the rest of the book.

They stopped for lunch shortly after noon and Lucy came to see how things were going. Levy still had a frustrated look on her face and was a little short with her friend when she told her it was going fine. Immediately she regretted it and apologized.

"It's going to be a lot of work, and doing it with Gajeel isn't going to be easy. He's sarcastic, crass, overbearing..." Lucy cut Levy off before she could go on.

"You know, you don't have to do this, if you don't want to." Levy knew Lucy meant it, but she could see the worry in her eyes even as she gave an out to helping.

Levy sighed and then gave Lucy a smile, taking her hands and squeezing them. "You know I'll do whatever I can to help you, even if it means putting up with a grumpy dragon slayer."

Lucy smiled in return and hugged Levy tight.

That afternoon Levy tried to not let Gajeel get to her, it was a tough thing to do. He was constantly teasing her, questioning her ability to translate what he was reading. Basically picking at everything she did. By the end of the day she was exhausted, she didn't even feel like reading her own book before she dropped into bed, groaning at the fact she'd be doing it all over again the next day, and the next, until the whole things was translated and they'd found out how to help Natsu.

The next few days went a bit better, but at the same time, weirder. Every morning Gajeel had breakfast waiting for them, and at least one item there was one of her favourites. Grapes one day, strawberry jam the next. On the fifth day she was beginning to wonder if it was accidental or if he was doing it on purpose. How would he know though? Lucy? Her friend denied telling him when asked, but Levy wasn't entirely sure if she could be believed.

They fell into a routine quickly, breakfast, translation, lunch, trying to figure out what was on the first page, then back to translating. It was that first page that was making her question her ability. She'd always considered herself smart, but this... Why couldn't she get it? She was found more than once just staring into space, trying to figure it out. Often someone would have to wave their hand in front of her face before she realized she was being spoken to.

After a week of trying to figure it out, Levy finally threw down her pen, the page before her filled with different words that could be the English translation of that infuriating line. She ran both her hands through her hair, dislodging the bandanna in it. "I don't think I'm ever going to get this, what if it's the one line we need? It could hold the secret to everything and I can't figure it out! Guess I'm not as smart as I think."

Gajeel had been watching her get increasingly frustrated every day they worked on it, but he didn't think she'd been questioning her ability. He rolled his eyes at her before he spoke. "Yeah, one line makes you not smart, meanwhile you've translated half the book where words have been smudged and missing, giving us insight into what's going on physiologically and mentally with Natsu. That line may be important, but I have no doubt you'll be able to figure out what it is. You're definitely the smartest person I've ever met."

Levy looked up at him in surprise, feeling her cheeks burn a little in a blush. She tried to play it off though, "You must not have met very many people then if I'm the smartest."

That cocky smirk was back, "You're just fishing for a compliment now aren't you? I've met plenty of people, plenty of smart people, by far you're the smartest. You should be with all the books you've read. Given half the chance you'd read the whole Magnolia library wouldn't you?"

Levy smiled, "I probably would. I love to read, and I retain most of what I do read. I'm just lucky I guess."

"Smart, you're smart. You'll figure it out eventually, I guarantee it." He nodded to punctuate his words.

Levy felt a little bit of warmth bloom in her chest at his confidence in her. She went into the rest of the afternoon with renewed resolve. As she left his room that night he held the door and said, "You'll get it, don't stress over it."

He was grinning at her and she was blushing, of course that was when Lucy decided to walk past. Her gaze went between the two of them and an eyebrow raised. She tucked her arm through Levy's and pulled her away.

"What was that about? Is there something going on between you two?" Lucy asked, her eyes going back to Gajeel's closed door.

"Going on? What do you... What? You think we're like... making out like teenagers or something?" Levy rolled her eyes and then laughed. "Yeah, right, we figured everything out days ago and now we're just sitting in there necking."

Lucy grinned, "Well, I doubt that, but still, it's time you found someone. Gajeel is good man, I wouldn't object if you two did have a fling."

Levy shook her head, "He's too... arrogant, short tempered. Too much like him."

"I think you're wrong about that." Lucy said, "But I won't push."

"Thanks Luce." She hugged her friend and they went down to dinner.

* * *

"Not possible." Gajeel growled, grabbing the page Levy had been writing on, reading the translation she had just written down.

"That's what it says, you think they're lying about it?" Levy was trying to hide a smile, he was staring at the page like he could change the words if he looked hard enough.

"There's no way that Salamander is stronger than me." He slammed the page down onto the table and looked over at her like she'd done it on purpose.

Now she was trying to contain her laughter, "What else do you think it could mean? 'The strength of a dragon comes from the strength of a slayer. The stronger a slayer, the more likely a dragon is to take control'. From what I'm reading that means he is indeed, stronger than you."

Gajeel got up, nearly knocking over his chair as he prowled back and forth across the room, muttering about how Salamander isn't stronger than him, he'd show him when he was back just who was stronger.

Levy couldn't stop the laughter from bubbling up now and it was not appreciated by Gajeel at all. He snapped at her.

"You shouldn't be laughing when you can't even figure out a one line translation."

Levy's laughing stopped instantly and it was replaced with a look of anger. Gajeel immediately regretted his words, things between them the past few days had been good, easy. Now he'd fucked that up.

"Levy..." He started towards her, but she stood up, slamming her pen down on the table.

"If you think it's so easy, then you do it." She got up and headed towards the door.

Gajeel moved forward and grabbed her hand gently, "I shouldn't have said that, it's just been a sore spot between Natsu and I on who's stronger for years."

"Is that an apology?" Levy asked, she should have pulled her hand away, but she didn't. It was large and warm around her much smaller fingers. She felt the callouses from years of fighting, and it was somehow a comfort to feel.

Gajeel sighed, "I guess it is."

"For someone who doesn't apologize much, you seem to be getting good at it." She said lightly.

He let out a humourless laugh, "Well since I keep putting my foot in my mouth, seems so."

Levy moved back over to the table and picked up the pen once more. "Fine, keep going."

The rest of the afternoon was spent translating what would happen based on the level of strength in a slayer. The whole time Gajeel was mumbling about how he should definitely have a dragon side. Convincing himself he was stronger than Natsu by the end of it, he was just better at controlling his dragon.

Levy knew it was bluster, but she said nothing.

That night she was reading over the notes, focusing on that infuriating line. 'Two souls, one body, trust earned is trust given, a patient heart soothes the tempest.' Wait... She went back through the notes they'd taken that day and suddenly it all clicked into place. Laughing to herself she grabbed the page and ran to Gajeel's room, without knocking she threw open the door.

"I figured it out! The line..." She stopped dead, Gajeel was sitting on the bed reading, only wearing a pair of sweats. It felt... intimate, seeing him bare chested, bare feet nearly sticking out over the edge of the bed.

He glanced over and smirked at the look on her face. He had figured out over the past couple weeks that she was attracted to him, but he also knew she hated that fact. Deciding to toy with her a bit, Gajeel got up and walked over to where she stood in the doorway, leaning one hand on the wall so he towered over her, surrounded her as he spoke. "So you figured it out, tell me what it means."

Levy swallowed hard, the words she had wanted to speak were gone. She had to look away from him, down to the page in her hand before she could gather her thoughts enough to speak. "We uh... we had been looking at the line like it was talking about only one person, just the slayer and his beast, but what if it wasn't? What if it was talking about another person entirely? Two souls, one body, obviously that means the slayer and dragon, but what if the rest is talking about someone they would trust. If this person trusts the dragon inside the slayer, the trust is returned, and then only they can help the two of them learn to live together, to work together."

A slow smile spread across Gajeel's face. "I knew you could do it shrimp, smartest person I know." He leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Should we celebrate?"

Levy sucked in a breath and backed out the door, "No, I... I think i should go tell Lucy."

Gajeel chuckled, "Run along then, tell her how to save Salamander." He turned away, but he spoke as he did. "Next time you open the door without knocking, I won't be dressed so modestly."

Levy blushed to the roots of her hair and nearly ran all the way to Lucy's room. She had to stand outside it a moment before knocking to get herself under control again. Finally, she knocked on the door and when Lucy opened it a smile spread across her face. Levy held out a book which held the English translation of the volume she had been convinced held the key to their problem.

"We did it Lucy, we found it. The way to help Natsu." She handed her the book. "It's all in here."

"You found it?" Lucy reached out and took the book from her hands.

"It wasn't easy, the book was so old we had to guess some of the words until it made sense when translated. A few pages were also missing but we got a lot of good information." Levy watched Lucy leaf through the pages, knowing how much this meant to her friend.

"Tell me everything, I need to know so I can help Natsu when we find him." Lucy looked up from the book to the blue haired woman.

Levy gently tugged the book out of Lucy's hands and sat down, Lucy followed her lead, eager to hear how she could help Natsu. "We'll start with the why part. When we were talking about Natsu that night, you said Igneel had told him something very important, but he couldn't remember what that was; I think I figured it out. See, one of the authors of this book... was Igneel, which means that Natsu had a better chance than anyone else to ward off the beast from the start. If he had remembered, Natsu might be here right now. The book tells us that the more powerful the slayer, the more likely it is that the part of their dragon teacher that resides inside them will begin to take over." Levy grinned then, "Gajeel grumbled for about a day when we translated that, something about how there was no way Salamander was stronger than he was."

Lucy's face was pensive as she listened to Levy explain, but she couldn't help but laugh. "That sounds like him, next thing you know, he'll be challenging Natsu to a battle when we find him. So Natsu is really powerful huh?" She sounded proud.

Levy nodded, still smiling. She was glad to see her friend laugh, but needed to explain the rest of it. "So that's the why, and this is how to help him." She flipped to another section of the book and skimmed it before she spoke. "The way to make the transition from slayer, to slayer harboring a beast inside him is a bit simple, but also difficult. It requires two things, the first is an acceptance of what's happening, of having the beast share a body with him and not denying it's existence. The beast must be let out, even in small bursts, so a trust is found between it and the host slayer. The longer the beast is denied, the stronger it becomes and the weaker the slayer ends up, which is of course bad for Natsu; but the situation isn't hopeless. The second thing required is someone the beast trusts, someone the beast will listen to unconditionally, someone the slayer also trusts enough to control the beast while it's out." Levy smiled again. "Gajeel tells me that Natsu has that with you, so the real problem is the first part of this. If Natsu can accomplish this, the beast is a valuable asset. The two of them become... partners, helping each other when needed, a valuable addition to the guild. The beast makes Natsu stronger, faster, more resilient to injury with more stamina than a regular human could ever have. He'll be known as the big guns. However, if this harmony can't be reached... the beast will slowly consume everything about the slayer until there's nothing left. Kindness would be shown to no one but the one it trusts and the only option becomes killing both slayer and beast, and that is the last thing any of us wants to happen."

Levy was finished then, and she sat in silence while she waited for Lucy to respond. The silence stretched out for a long time as Lucy thought over everything, every possible scenario and outcome. When she finally spoke, it was to summarize everything Levy had said.

"So, if Natsu accepts the beast, gives it freedom, and trusts me to control it, he will be okay?" Lucy looked at her friend for confirmation.

Levy nodded, "Yes, that's right."

"Okay, that sounds doable." Lucy rose from her seat and smiled. "I'm going back to the mountains, to find Natsu. Want to come?"

Levy wasn't really sure she wanted to go anywhere but back home, but she knew her friend needed her, so she stood up too and grinned. "Of course I do."

"Then it's settled, lets go get Natsu."

* * *

Ok, yay! Done! I hope you guys liked it, this one was a bit challenging for me. Coming up with instances between Levy and Gajeel always has me worried I'm not portraying them right. Let me know how I did! I can't wait to hear from you all!

 **Crimsonlink310** : I'm so glad to have you back and reading, and giving me great feedback once again. I hope I did alright on this chapter, getting into their relationship and characteristics will be a little difficult but fun for me. I hope I do them justice.

 **RelentlessFlames** : Well now I'm just blushing. I'm so glad to have my readers from BTP reading Trust Issues as well. All I want to do is give you guys a great story full of fun, laughter, angst and romance. I hope I can accomplish all that and live up to expectation.

 **UserM24** : Haha, I'm glad I threw everyone off. I knew what people were expecting so I purposely did the unexpected. I'm glad to have you back reviewing as well. I hope I don't disappoint!

 **Talkativejagua** r: Me too! At some point there will be reader interaction. I'm going to write a bit based on suggestions! Look for it!

 **RackleRosie44** : HERE IT IS I HOPE YOU LIKED IT! GALE FEELS!


	3. Chapter 3

I'm back! Did you miss me? I hope you guys like the way it's been going and keep reading!

Disclaimer: I am not the genius, Mashima is.

I am so sad that the Manga is almost done but I can't wait for the anime to restart. There are rumours about it starting in September, but some in December. I just hope it's this year!

* * *

Levy and Lucy were packing up their bags when a knock came at the door, Lucy opened it they both saw Gajeel standing on the other side. He started to say something but stopped when he noticed the half packed bags on the bed.

"You guys going somewhere?" He asked, his eyes travelling to the other side of the room where Levy was emptying drawers.

"As a matter of fact we are," Levy said without looking at him, still afraid she might start blushing if she did. "We're going to get Natsu."

"Sounds good, when do we leave?" He asked.

"We were... planning to go on our own." Lucy said, wincing already because she knew what was coming. She didn't have long to wait before Gajeel exploded.

"On your own?" He asked incredulously." Are you fucking crazy? Do you not remember Lucy, what he did to me, what he did to the dragon before he finally ran off? He nearly killed us both! You're lucky as hell he didn't turn his wrath on you! No, no way are you guys going on your own. I'm coming with you, be glad I don't tell Erza how stupid you were going to be." His face was red as he yelled.

"Excuse me," Levy said, coming up to him now, hands on her hips, furious that he thought so little of their ability to handle themselves. "We're not a couple of weak women who can't take care of themselves. We don't need the big muscled dragon slayer coming along and help the damsels in distress."

"I damn well know you both can take care of yourselves, in normal situations. This isn't a normal situation, and you, shrimp, have never seen what he can do. Lucy may not be in trouble from the beast, but she's his companion and she has magic. What have you got?" He growled.

"I may not have magic but I can still take care of myself. Do you think I'm just going to rush in and do something stupid trying to get him back?" She was toe to toe with him now.

"Of course not, but you could still get hurt. Both of you! It's a good idea to have some backup just in case it goes south again!" Gajeel was struggling not to grab Levy and shake some sense into her.

Lucy intervened before things got even more out of hand. What was with them? She had never known either one to argue so ardently with another person. Did they really hate each other?

"I'd be glad to have you along Gajeel" She said loudly, until the two of them stopped arguing and looked at her. "It would be nice knowing someone is there to back us up if needed." She gave him a smile.

Some of the fire went out of Gajeel's gaze and he nodded once, sending a glare at Levy, she was giving him the same look right back. Boy if looks could kill.

"I'll be by in the morning. If you guys are gone when I get here..." He left the threat hanging in the air as he turned and left the room.

As soon as the door was shut, Levy rounded on Lucy. "Why did you let him come? We don't need his help."

Lucy went back to packing her clothes, she knew she could handle Levy a little easier than she could Gajeel. "I know you think we can handle this on our own, and truthfully we probably could, but it makes me feel better knowing that he's coming along. He's a dragon slayer himself, and if for some reason what you've translated ends up not being true..." She held up a hand to stop Levy from protesting that her translation was off. "We will probably need his help. It's a good thing that he's coming. For me, let this go okay?"

Levy huffed and crossed her arms, letting Lucy see her unhappiness before she said. "Fine, he can come."

Lucy smiled, "Well alright then, lets get some sleep."

* * *

Gajeel was still bitching the next morning as they got to the train station, it was starting to get on Levy's nerves.

"I still can't believe you and the shrimp were going to try and find Salamander on your own." Gajeel admonished for the hundredth time since he had come by the house last night. Though why he had originally come they never found out, Gajeel had been too busy yelling about how stupid they were. "You have no idea what kind of condition you're going to find him in. For all you know, he's already let the beast take control. He could be as bad as that poison dragon, killing towns off."

Levy reacted before Lucy did. She got up in his face, her finger prodding into his chest. "Why would you say something like that? Can't you see she's already worried sick over the idea? You didn't have to actually voice it!"

Lucy smiled at her champion and laid a hand on her friends arm. "Relax Levy, he didn't mean it to be hurtful, he was just trying to prepare me for the worst."

Gajeel was standing there now with a scowl on his face, arms crossed over his chest. "You seem to have a low opinion of me shrimp, what the hell did I do to deserve it?"

"Oh, well lets see, should we start with the way you dragged me into the guild hall because you thought I was a spy, or how about the train?" Levy was mimicking his stance now.

Lucy was surprised to see a blush spread over Gajeel's cheeks. "I already apologized for that, holding a grudge is just petty."

Levy deflated a bit and sighed. "You did, I'm sorry, I'm just... worried." She looked uncomfortable now.

"We all are." Gajeel said.

Lucy was suddenly staring at them like they both had two heads, Levy flushed and walked on ahead towards the ticket station. Lucy hesitated before she followed, Gajeel bringing up the rear, still scowling slightly.

They were shown to a sleeper car, an extra bed dragged in for Levy and Lucy to share during the trip. Lucy excused herself to go make sure all the preparations were still in place for Gajeel's care, leaving the two of them alone for a moment. As soon as the door was shut, Gajeel turned to Levy.

"Are we going to argue like this the whole time? I thought we'd gotten past all that when we worked together." He finished stowing their luggage and turned to face her.

Levy sighed and sank to the edge of the bed, the rest of her anger at his accompanying them fading away. "You bring out the worst in me apparently. I don't mean to get so angry, but you just... push my buttons." She admitted.

A smile, somewhat smug, crossed over Gajeel's face. "Good to know, so I shouldn't take it personally?"

"Well, I'm sure sometimes you should. You do piss me off on occasion." She managed a small smile in return.

"Pissing people off isn't new to me, I do it frequently, and most of the time on purpose." His grin got broader.

Levy laughed, "I imagine you do. I'll try not to get so upset, but I make no promises. You remind me of someone I used to know and... sometimes I can't help it." She shrugged.

"Well I don't know who this person is, but they sound like a real asshole. Do you need me to go give whoever it is a lesson in manners?" He asked.

"No, I don't think it would do any good. Thanks for the offer though." She was smiling at him.

"Let me know if you change your mind shrimp, I don't mind knocking together a few heads." Gajeel offered.

"I don't need you to fight my battles for me." Levy's smile froze in place.

"I know, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't do it if you asked." He said in a softer tone now. "I'll protect you shrimp, even if you think you don't need it."

The tone of his voice made Levy's cheeks heat up and she could tell by the smug look on his face that he'd gotten the exact reaction he wanted. Lucy chose that moment to reenter the car and once again gave them both that look like they'd grown another head. Instead of commenting on it though, she turned to Levy and said.

"Last time we took a train you probably saw what happens to Gajeel whenever he's on something that moves. He gets extreme motion sickness and can't move for the duration of the trip, that's why he gets the sleeper car. For this entire ride, as well as the three days by wagon, he's going to be completely useless and we have to take care of him. Two men will be along to help him use the facilities, but we have to feed him.

Gajeel straightened away from the window he was leaning against and came forward, ready to protest that someone also did that for him, but Lucy cut him off as he started to speak.

"We'll take turns of course, it wouldn't be fair that one of us always has to do it. I'll even go first." Lucy smiled over at Gajeel, who was frowning at her, then at Levy, who also looked less than pleased. Had she read the signals wrong? Oh well, too late now, she'd already cancelled the lady who spoon fed Gajeel on trips.

Gajeel wasn't given time to protest as the whistle sounded and the train began to move. There was just enough time for him to flop onto the bed before he groaned and his face turned green.

Levy was holding back a grin when she said, "Boy, you weren't kidding about him being useless."

"Natsu has it too. It's apparently a dragon slayer thing, though who knows why. Last time we came up here I thought I was going to have to take care of them both. Thankfully Gajeel is a smart man and had it all taken care of." Lucy said, going over to where the impaired man lay and asking if he needed anything.

The iron dragon slayer shook his head and then basically ignored them while he tried to concentrate on not loosing the small breakfast he'd had. Levy and Lucy moved over to where two big comfy chairs were and sat down. They spent the next few hours reviewing the book and everything they'd translated, coming up with the best plan of action to help Natsu once they'd found him and what they might do if there were any problems trying to get the beast to give back control.

When dinner arrived that night, the girls ate before Lucy, true to her word, took the bowl of soup over to Gajeel and sat in the chair next to the bed.

"It's vegetable, think you can hold it down okay?" She asked, waiting for his answer before she lifted the spoon from the liquid.

Gajeel looked up at her, nausea written all over his face as he looked down to the bowl she held. "I guess so." He took his time rolling onto his back, groaning all the way. He had to pause at one point or else he'd throw up all over himself, and Lucy. He already knew what kind of trouble that caused.

Lucy was patient with him as he slowly ate the soup. It was cold by the time he finished it, but he held it down. Levy watched all the while, feeling a mixture of exasperation and sympathy for the dragon slayer.

Levy woke in the middle of the night to the sound of retching. Sitting up she rubbed her eyes, momentarily confused as to what she was hearing. When it dawned on her that she was listening to Gajeel revisit his dinner, she crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom, grabbing a glass of water and a cloth. She came around to the side of the bed he was leaning over and placed a hand gently on his back.

"Hey, are you alright?" She asked softly.

"Great." He strained out.

Her hand began to move in slow circles as he brought up what little was left in his stomach. When he finished she moved the bowl away and knelt down so she could wipe the damp cloth across his face without him having to move. She ended by cleaning off his mouth and offering him some water to wash the taste away. He used it and then rolled slowly onto his back, still breathing deeply.

"Better?" Levy asked as she stood.

"Yeah, thanks." His eyes moved to find her in the dark cabin.

"Next time I get sick, I expect similar treatment." She said lightly.

He smiled, "Deal."

Picking up the bowl and taking it to the bathroom, she cleaned it out and brought it back to him. As she turned to go back to bed he reached out and caught her hand. "You didn't have to do that you know."

"I know." She squeezed his hand and pulled away.

Gajeel watched her go, once again amazed at the differences he saw in her. One minute she was stubborn and abrasive, the next she was caring and gentle. The little blue haired woman was such a contradiction. That fact only made him like her more.

* * *

A couple days later Gajeel woke with a start when the cabin's door was shut with a snap. He groaned when his stomach rolled and turned to glare at whoever it was that had entered.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you were sleeping." Lucy came in, carrying the translated book in her hands.

Gajeel grunted and closed his eyes again. "You have that memorized yet?" She'd barely put the thing down the entire time they'd been travelling.

Lucy grinned, "Not yet, but I'm sure I will soon. Do you need anything while I'm here? Levy and I are going to eat lunch in the dining car, just need to grab a sweater. There's a draft, not sure where it's coming from."

Gajeel shook his head slightly. "I'm good, how long have you two been gone?"

"A few hours, we've been talking to a few other travelers. One of them is archaeologist, so Levy is picking his brain of course." Lucy rolled her eyes.

Gajeel smiled. "Sounds like heaven for the shrimp."

"Yes, it is." Lucy hesitated for a moment before she asked. "You like Levy, right? I mean you don't hate her?"

Gajeel's brow lifted, though his eyes stayed shut. "Hate her? Why would I hate her?"

"Well you guys do fight a lot." she pointed out.

"Verbal sparring. Don't worry Blondie, I like your friend just fine. You'd know if I didn't." He said.

Lucy nodded, though he couldn't see it. "Alright, well I'm going to lunch, go back to sleep."

"Already headed there." He mumbled, out before she left the cabin.

* * *

When they finally reached the village where they'd stayed last time, Gajeel felt like he could kiss the ground for not moving out from under him. Instead he helped the wagon driver unload the luggage and take it inside the inn.

They were greeted warmly by the innkeeper, who immediately recognized them. The man was glad to see that Gajeel was healing nicely and equally delighted to meet Levy. He was, however, sad to hear that Natsu was still missing.

"We came back to try and find him again. You haven't heard anything about him have you?" Lucy asked, hope in her voice.

The innkeeper shook his head, "No, I am sorry but I've heard nothing about your friend. Truth be told, we've all been a bit distracted by something that happened a couple weeks ago. One morning we woke up to a... green fog, blanketing the town. We didn't know what to make of it, still don't. It was so thick we couldn't seem to see more than a foot ahead of us. The strangest part was, a few people from both the town and the guests here at the inn, just dropped dead within a few minutes of being in the fog. Six deaths in total, strangest thing I've ever seen..." The innkeeper looked lost in thought now as Gajeel and Lucy shared a look.

The dragon was alive, and it had tracked them to the village. The biggest question however, was how almost everyone in this place survived, when three other towns had not. They had done nothing to ward themselves from the poison cloud, yet only six were dead.

"We need to contact the guild, there's something up here that causes an immunity to the poison dragon cloud. Porlyusica needs to know what that is and we need to find it for her." Gajeel said, the guilds stand by physician had been called in when it seemed that the injuries done to Elfman and Evergreen weren't going to be fixed with normal medicine. "I'm going to find a lacrima." He disappeared out the front door of the inn, leaving Levy and Lucy to rent their rooms and take the luggage upstairs.

He returned over an hour later with news. "Porlyusica is sending Wendy up to investigate, with her healing magic she has a better chance of figuring this out than anyone else. Until she gets here, we'll continue with our original plans to find Salamander."

That evening the three of them sat in the dining room planning their course of action while they waited for dinner to be served.

"We have two objectives now." Gajeel said, leaning forward on the table. "We have to find Salamander, and we have to find the dragon. Unfortunately, while it seems the dragon is here, Natsu is not. I think it's in our best interest to split up, as much as I hate to say that."

Levy nodded. "I was going to suggest the same thing. I think you and I should stay and search the area for the dragon, while Lucy goes to the surrounding towns and finds out if anyone has seen someone matching Natsu's description."

Lucy was a little surprised that Levy voluntarily wanted to stay behind with Gajeel. Given the way she'd flipped out on Lucy when she'd realized she was disappearing so Levy would have to be the one to feed Gajeel.

They all agreed that this was the best course of action. There was one stipulation from Gajeel however.

"You are in no way to approach Salamander if you find him, there is no telling his state of mind. You better listen to me bunny girl, I won't have your death on my conscience." He used his finger to point at Lucy, gaining her promise to wait for them to get there at least three times before he'd let the matter drop.

They saw her off the next morning and then made their own way into the woods, looking for clues as to the dragons whereabouts. The problem was, they found no signs. No major breaks in the trees, no bones from animals that served as their dinner; even footprints did not exist. By the end of the week, both were frustrated by the lack of information found on the dragon that tried to wipe out yet another town.

"Unless it's an invisible dragon, there should have been something, ANYTHING leading to where it is staying. How is this even possible?" Levy said, dropping the map she'd been making of the area on the table in Gajeel's room. The pencil rolled across the top and dropped off the other side, she glared at it.

"The only thing I can think of is it's home is elsewhere and it's simply flying through destroying towns along the way. Maybe it's trying to clear humans out." He shrugged, his arms crossing his chest. He was frustrated too, but kept it inward, Levy was complaining enough for them both.

"There still should have been some sign of it. It's just not possible for there to be no trace..." She moved over to the chairs and plopped down into one.

Gajeel wandered over to stand in front of her, loomed was more like it, looking down at her. "Relax shrimp, we'll find a trace of it eventually. This dragon is just sneaky."

She looked up at him and sighed. "I know you're right, I just feel useless. Lucy's off on her own searching for Natsu and I can't even find a giant ass dragon."

Gajeel leaned down, bracing his arms on either side of her, looking directly into her eyes. "We'll find him, I promise."

He was close... so close. Levy could feel her heartbeat speed up. He smelled... wonderful. Distractedly she reached up and ran her hand down one side of his nose, over the rivets there. "Why did you do this to your face? I've been wondering."

It took a moment for Gajeel to reply, the mixture of surprise and pleasure at the feel of her touch left him speechless. "I'm the Iron Dragon Slayer, it seemed appropriate. Plus it tends to shock people."

Levy laughed. "Yeah, that adds up, anything to put people off right?"

He grinned in return. "You should put one right here." He touched one side of her nose. "You'd look cute."

She raised a brow. "Are you saying I'm not cute now?"

Gajeel shook his head, "No, you're not cute." Levy's brows sunk downward and she started to speak but he cut her off. "You're beautiful."

Surprise replaced the frown, her mouth rounding in an o as she felt her face heat up. He didn't move away, didn't make a sound, just watched her. Abruptly he stood, backing away from her. "We should get something to eat, rest up, start our search over in the morning."

Levy was trying to get her brain to work again, his words were so unexpected it emptied all thoughts from her head. Finally she uncurled from the chair and stood too. "I'll go down and see what's on the menu. Are we eating here again?"

Gajeel was watching her with a half smile, knowing he'd unsettled her. "Yeah, sounds good. Run along shrimp." There was a warning in his voice, but why, she didn't know.

He acted as if nothing had happened the rest of the night, whereas she was wondering what HAD happened. Did he say she was beautiful just to unsettle her? Did he actually mean it? Why did she even care? She'd sworn off this kind of relationship. He was exactly what she didn't want, shouldn't want. Levy was distracted right up until she laid down in bed that night. She could barely tell you what she'd had for dinner, or what she and Gajeel had talked about. Her thoughts shouldn't be this consumed with him. In the end she berated herself for the way her thoughts had strayed and vowed in the morning that things would go back to the way they had been. She fell asleep feeling resolved.

In the morning she met him for breakfast, determined to treat him as nothing more than a friend of Lucy's. The friendly hello she had prepared died on her lips when she saw his face. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Gajeel held a piece of paper, looking up at her he said, "It's from Lucy, she found him."

* * *

Ok so there it is! I hope you enjoyed it. Again I'm sorry about the length of time it's taking between the chapters this time. Life has gotten a lot more hectic over the last few months. I'm posting this and working on the next one right away so... Here's hoping it's not that long in coming lol.

 **Satanovna** : That's what I love about Gajeel, he acts all big and tough but he's like a 5 year old lol. His teasing of Levy is one of my favourite things in this. I can't wait to do more.

 **Piranha PK** : Thank you for understanding about the late chapters. I'm so thankful for readers like you that will keep reading no matter how long I take. Levy from the start, as I mentioned in Between the Pages is going to be the most ooc character, as she's not actually from the Fairy Tail world. I'm trying to keep true to her basic nature while making her a bit more... spunky.

 **CrimsonLink310** : I really hope I'm tying it together well. As I write their chapters I have BTP open in another tab and am constantly checking to make sure it all matches. There was only one place where stuff changed but if no one caught it I'm not going to point it out lol. The contrast between Natsu and Lucy and Gajeel and Levy is a big one and I really hope I'm doing it well. I admit to having an easier time writing Nalu than Gajevy, but again I hope I'm doing well and everyone loves it. I myself can't wait to get to the night of Natsu and Lucy's wedding. There's still a little ways to go, with a lot of tension before then. I'm still toying with exactly how it's going to happen. Can't wait. As for Levy's relationship... we'll get there. On to saving the wayward Dragon slayer!

 **RelentlessFlames** : Yay! Me either!

 **UserM24** : You forget to review, I take forever to post a new chapter, it all works out lol. I kept the translation scene obscured on purpose in BTP because I knew I'd be writing a sequel with Levy and Gajeel, and I needed to leave some content undone :P Again, I always picture Gajeel as a big badass... who is secretly 5 years old. The necking... it will come ;) Write a little, write a lot, I don't mind either way. I just love hearing from those of you that read. Good or bad, even suggestions, I'm just glad someone is enjoying what I've written :)

 **SassyKitty1701** : I'm writing as fast as I can. Life is getting a little hectic. We'll get to Levy's world soon enough ;)


	4. Chapter 4

Starbucks is cold... Outside is burning. I never know what to wear, so here I sit freezing in a tank top lol. Anyway here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: Mashima is amazing and I own the rights to nothing, I cry.

* * *

Levy and Gajeel left the same morning they got the note. Even doing that still left them with a three day trip in a rocking carriage. Levy was better prepared to take care of him this time and had a bucket, water and a cloth tucked beside her on the seat. As soon as the carriage started moving she helped Gajeel down to his side and put a pillow under his head.

"Careful shrimp," He said weakly. "I may start to think you like me."

"I just don't want you to puke on me again." She said as she settled back in her seat.

Gajeel grinned, but didn't say anything. His eyes were closed, allowing Levy to study him. The lines of his face were sharp, everything about it hard. Yet there was a softness too, only seen when he relaxed, or slept; how many had seen it she wondered. Her eyes wandered downward, to the hard muscles of his arms. Built in battle, scars marring his skin, but somehow those only added to his looks. He was squished into the seat, his body so large he seemed to take up most of the carriage. Good thing she was a small woman, otherwise it would be an uncomfortable ride. She didn't mind though, at least he seemed to be comfortable.

The trip was mostly spent in silence, Levy read while Gajeel slept, but it didn't seem as long as other times they had traveled. Something had changed between them, she just wasn't sure what.

When they arrived at the inn Lucy had told them to meet her at, it was no surprise to see her standing outside. Levy wondered how many times in the last three days the blonde had waited for sight of them. As soon as she and Gajeel got out of the carriage Lucy was rushing over.

"Finally! I was beginning to think you guys would never get here. I've got a map of the area and marked the most likely places for him to be, if we leave now we should be able to check out at least three before dark."

Gajeel held up a hand, "Slow down bunny girl, we just got here and it was an exhausting trip; Natsu can wait until morning. I know you're anxious to get going, but I'm in no condition to protect either of you right now." He still looked a little green.

Lucy huffed and looked like she was about to say something, but after glancing at Levy she seemed to change her mind. With a deflating sigh, she nodded. "Okay, we go in the morning."

That night at dinner, Lucy told them everything she had found out about Natsu and how he'd been selling fish to the village for a little while before disappearing altogether. Gajeel agreed this was the best place to start looking for him.

"He's likely still near, unfortunately, it's just as likely that he stopped showing up because the beast has taken over." He looked over at Lucy. "What we worried about has happened. Are you prepared for the fact that... you may have lost him?"

Lucy shook her head. "I don't believe I've lost him, I won't. We just have to bring him home, where his family is."

Gajeel and Levy shared a look, they both hoped it was true.

After a good nights rest and a quick breakfast they were all ready to go and find the wayward dragon slayer.

"The man in town, Hershel, said he'd been fishing, so the best place to check would be around the river, right?" Lucy looked at them both for confirmation, she was anxious, and it showed.

Gajeel nodded, "Yes that's the best place to start. It's still a viable food source for the beast as well so it's likely he hasn't strayed too far from it."

Levy reached for Lucy's hand and squeezed it. "Don't worry, we're going to find him, we're going to help him. Even if the beast has taken over."

Lucy gave her a small smile. "Thanks Lev, I'm glad you guys are here."

The first two caves held nothing, but the third showed definite signs of something living there. A bed of leaves and grass sat against one wall, along with a bowl full of water. Those seemed normal enough, nothing to be concerned about, but what else was in the cave definitely was. Bones littered the floor, ranging in size from as small as a rabbit, to as large as a deerling and Hodras. Thankfully, none of the bones were human.

Lucy and Gajeel shared a look, his face held grim lines. Levy knew they were all thinking the same thing; this was where Natsu had been staying, and it looked like the beast had taken over. The only comfort was, once again, the lack of a human skeleton.

Natsu wasn't there at the moment, so the three of them took the time to look around, to assess just how far gone Natsu might be, but before they got very far, a growling started from the entrance and Gajeel's voice sounded quietly from the shadowed part of the cave.

"Lucy, move away from the opening, come back towards my voice. We have no idea what's coming."

Lucy did as he instructed, Levy was already gripping Gajeel's arm. She had yet to see any sort of beastly animal in this world and she was not looking forward to it. The growling was starting to get louder as whatever was at the mouth of the cave began to enter. Lucy backed away quickly, but she was too close to it.

Levy's nails dug into Gajeel's arm as Lucy was suddenly tackled, pushed flat on her back with both arms pinned to the ground above her head, A figure that looked very much human, but every bit dangerous had her at his mercy. Lucy screamed out in panic, but the one on top of her did something unexpected. The growling had stopped, and they all heard a breath being drawn in instead. The next thing that was heard could only be called a purr.

They watched as Lucy's eyes snapped open and she stared into the eyes of the beast. She broke out into a smile as the beast leaned its head against hers and kept up the purring sound. "I found you." She whispered.

The beast moved its head down to nuzzle Lucy as his hold on her wrists loosened, its fingers gently soothing away the pressure marks. It breathed in deeply once more and a sound of satisfaction left its lips.

One of them must have made a noise noise because the beast had Lucy behind him in a protective gesture so fast it was dizzying. It was growling again but this time it was more of a snarl. Lucy moved forward and took the beasts hand, saying in a comforting voice "It's okay, it's just my friends, your friends. They're here to help you, just like I am alright? Do not hurt them." Lucy said firmly, taking the advice of the translated book she had read countless times over the last two weeks. The beast would listen to the trusted one, and that was Lucy. It growled as Gajeel and Levy came out of the shadowed part of the cave, but he made no move towards them.

"Why don't you guys wait outside? We'll be out shortly." Lucy suggested, her eyes never leaving the face of the man she loved.

"No way Luce, Natsu would kill me if anything happened to you." Gajeel protested, but he was cut off by the snapping of the beasts jaw.

"Just go!" Lucy said harshly, "I'm safer here than either of you, we'll be out soon!"

Gajeel muttered the whole way out of the cave, while Levy said nothing, but she looked terrified.

As soon as they were outside the cave Levy released her death grip on Gajeel's arm and spun to look at the cave entrance, she was trembling.

"Will he hurt her?" She asked in a shaking voice.

Gajeel shook his head, "I doubt it, but I don't trust the beast, we'll just have to wait and see The only thing that is certain is that it would have hurt us if we had stayed."

Levy nodded and sat down on a nearby rock. "The beast... that's not what Natsu is really like right?"

Gajeel leaned against the tree beside the rock. "No, usually he's a hyperactive, destructive, a little on the clueless side, goofy, but overall harmless harmless dragon slayer. Well unless he's on a job or someone harms someone in the guild. Then he... well he and the beast have a lot in common if that happens. Then again so do I, everyone in the guild will do anything we can to protect our family."

"He's good for her?" Levy asked as she stared at the mouth of the cave.

"Yes, more importantly, she's good for him. Bunny girl is the only one who can save him now." He looked down, a little surprised to find his hand had been taken by a very small one.

"Don't let the beast hurt her okay? She's my best friend." Levy sounded vulnerable.

Gajeel paused as he studied her face, there was more to this... "I won't shrimp, count on it." He tugged her up off the rock and hugged her. Surprisingly she didn't protest, she simply leaned her head on his chest as they both watched the cave entrance.

When Lucy and Natsu appeared, Levy broke out of Gajeel's hold and came over to hug Lucy, the blonde was surprised to see tears in the blue haired girls eyes.

"Don't scare me like that okay?" She admonished.

Lucy hugged her friend tightly and smiled, "While I'm glad you were worried about me, you knew as well as I did that I wasn't in any danger. You're the one who translated the book after all."

"Yeah but I wasn't expecting him to look so... feral." She said quietly.

Natsu stepped forward and spoke to Levy, "I'm sorry if I scared you. To be honest, the beast scares me too."

Levy looked up at Natsu and then pulled away from Lucy to offer her hand to him. "I'm Levy McGarden, Lucy's best friend."

Natsu smiled and took her hand. "I'm Natsu Dragneel, Lucy's boyfriend."

The two of them shared a smile and then Gajeel finally spoke, "Nothing to say to me Salamander? You did try to kill me last time we were together." He was standing with his arms over his chest, a scowl on his face, body tense as if waiting for the beast to reappear.

Natsu gave a half smile and rubbed his hand along the back of his head. "Sorry for that, I tried to control the beast, but I'd already used my pull with him to get us the hell out of the poison cloud the dragon had let loose. How I'm even still alive right now, I don't have any idea."

"Yeah well, we don't either. Come on, we need to get back to the inn, and no offense, but you need a bath. That stench is enough to wilt flowers." His arms dropped to his sides as he turned and headed back for the town.

Natsu's half smile turned full blown now as he hurried to catch up with his guild mate. Lucy and Levy followed behind them a short ways and Lucy turned to her friend. "He really is a wonderful man, I'm sorry the first time you met him was when the beast was in control."

Levy shook her head, "I should have expected it, but I didn't. It won't surprise me again."

When they got back to the inn they all agreed the conversation about everything that had been discovered over the past couple months should be in private between Natsu and Lucy. Gajeel and Levy went back to his room and ordered food, it would take a while to have it made ready for four people, two of them hungry dragon slayers. At least he had enough food on hand.

"You guys eat like this all the time?" Levy raised a brow as the man left to help make the dinner.

"Hey, we're large, hungry men. We eat a lot." Gajeel defended themselves.

She rolled her eyes, "Just how much food does the guild have to have on hand at any one time I wonder?"

"No idea, you'd have to ask Mira, she always has enough though. I can imagine the food bill is quite high, good thing we're the best guild around." He boasted.

Levy laughed, "No self esteem issues at all huh?"

"We're the best, everyone knows it." Gajeel defended.

They bickered back and forth about nothing until the food began to arrive, Smoked fish and rice tossed in soy sauce, Hodras meat and steamed veggies covered in teriyaki. For dessert there was rich chocolate cake covered in strawberry sauce with a few whole ones resting on the side of each slice.

Natsu and Lucy arrived just as the last of it was brought in and the man ate like he was starving, He looked to be in absolute pleasure as he ate the food. Levy imagined it was nice to eat something that wasn't raw. The food was gone all too quickly, and Natsu pouted, but insisted that he could wait until morning to eat anything else.

For a while after dinner they sat around the table and talked, first it was decided how they were going to deal with Natsu and his beast forging a partnership. Tomorrow morning the carriage would leave for the same town they had stayed in the first time and all four of them would be on it, but upon arriving, Gajeel and Levy would stay to help Wendy with her investigation, while Natsu and Lucy headed back to Magnolia and the places he was most familiar with.

Next they spoke about Levy and Lucy's home since Natsu hadn't been around for the other conversations concerning it. They answered all the questions he had and then began telling them about how they met. Levy had become Lucy's publicist early on, seeing something in her that others hadn't, and now she and her stories were world famous.

The look in Natsu's eyes was one of pride as he hugged Lucy.

"Well, it's an early morning tomorrow, the carriage leaves just after sunrise so I'm going to head to bed." Levy rose and hugged Lucy, then waved at Natsu, though she all but ignored Gajeel. "Night everyone."

She went back to the room she now had all to herself and thought about the days events. She was glad they had found Natsu, glad that he hadn't hurt any of them as the beast and that the man was now back in control. It would be a lot of work in coming days for the two of them to get the beast under control and working together with the dragon slayer. If they could do that, they could do anything.

She thought about how soon she wouldn't have the buffer of Lucy or even Natsu between her and Gajeel. It made her... uncomfortable. She liked the man but, the way he made her feel scared her. She was afraid of it becoming just like... before. Gajeel didn't seem the same type, but then again, he hadn't either. Not until it was too late. Putting those thoughts from her mind, Levy crawled into bed and slept.

Gajeel seemed to be tired and in a bad mood when Levy came out of the inn the next morning. It was confirmed when he saw Lucy and Natsu and he said.

"I don't want to see any of that lovey dovey shit on the trip back, I'm already going to be sick and I don't need the added nausea." He growled.

Levy had just sat down on the bench when she heard Lucy's sarcastic reply.

"Don't worry, we'll keep the lovey dovey shit to a minimum. He'll be sick too remember?" The woman made a face only Levy could see and it made her giggle.

The day and a half journey was exhausting for everyone, Natsu hadn't traveled in a while and seemed to be even more nauseous than normal. Meanwhile Gajeel was sick and surly, so when he did speak it was usually to snap something at Levy, who snapped right back. When they finally arrived at their destination, everyone seemed to split up and go their separate ways with no real plan to get back together. Natsu and Lucy would be leaving the next morning, but Gajeel and Levy needed to ensure they had rooms for the next week or so.

It wasn't until that evening that they convened once again, the food laid out by the innkeeper was a powerful draw. This one was well aware of the dragon slayers appetites and therefore had made sure so much food was on hand it looked like he'd be feeding the entire town. The meal was mostly silent, except for Lucy and Levy speaking to each other every so often. Partway through the meal, Happy suddenly appeared and landed on top of Natsu's head.

"Happy!" The pinkette cried, grabbing hold of the cat and dancing around in a circle while the sound of endless purring filled the dining room.

"How..?" Lucy wondered.

"He came with us." A quiet voice sounded from behind them. Everyone turned to see a blue haired girl of about 13 standing there with her own flying cat, but unlike Happy, this one was white.

"Wendy!" Natsu cried and went to greet the girl too. She was immediately squished in his arms as he laughed in his joy.

"It's good to see you Natsu-san, but you're squishing me." She managed to get out.

Natsu let her go, but dragged her to sit down at the table. "When did you get here?"

"I've been in this town for a while now, apparently I missed Gajeel and Levy by a matter of hours when I first arrived. I knew you'd all be back soon though so I started searching on my own. I haven't found anything so far, but now that I'll have help it shouldn't take too long." She smiled at them all.

"Well Salamander and bunny-girl are leaving for Magnolia in the morning, but you'll have me and Levy to help you out." Gajeel said, being surprisingly nice considering his mood the past couple days.

The younger girl smiled, "That sounds perfect, for now though do you think I could have some of those berry tarts?"

Levy handed the girl the plate and she smiled her thanks. The rest of the night went smoother and everyone's mood had lightened by the time they all went to bed.

The morning brought another round of goodbyes as Natsu and Lucy headed for home. Levy squeezed Lucy and promised she'd see her soon, then awkwardly hugged Natsu, a man she trusted with her friend, but didn't quite know yet. Gajeel said something to Lucy as he helped her into the carriage that made her smile. The two dragon slayers shared a handshake that was really more of an armshake before Natsu climbed in the carriage too and it began to roll away.

Once it was out of sight Levy turned to look at the little blue haired girl.

"I don't think we ever really met did we? I'm Levy." She held out her hand to the girl.

She smiled and took her hand. "I'm Wendy, I'm the sky dragon slayer."

Levy seemed a little surprised at that and Gajeel nudged her, "Careful, she's more vicious than the beast when she's angry."

That made Wendy laugh, "You know very well I'm better at healing than fighting! It's why I'm working with Porlyusica and am here to help you guys find out how the people here are immune to the poison cloud. You guys don't have any ideas?"

Levy shook her head. "I've been thinking about it, but I haven't come up with anything yet. Which, if you knew me, you would know how utterly frustrating that it."

Gajeel nodded and leaned down towards Wendy, whispering as if the information he was imparting was confidential; but Levy could still hear it. "I've seen her frustrated, she yells a lot, throws things."

"It was a pencil, it's not like it hurt you." Levy rolled her eyes at the dramatics.

Wendy smiled as she listened to them talk, her own cat flew over and landed in her arms. "Oh! This is Carla, she's an exceed just like Happy."

Levy reached over to pet the cat, who let her, but grumbled about it the whole time.

"She's not a very social cat, but she's been with me longer than I've been in the guild and I love her." Wendy said as she stroked the cat, eliciting a purr.

"She's cute, I'm glad you have that kind of companionship. I've got a cat at home too, his name is..." She flushed, the name was a bit... different. "Pantherlilly, I tend to call him Lilly though."

"That's a weird name shrimp." Gajeel commented.

"I know, but at least it's not Princess fuzzy mittens the wise or something. Some people go way too far." She protested.

"Who the hell would name an animal that?" He seemed bewildered.

"Trust me, people do. Crazy cat people." She nodded sagely.

Gajeel shook his head and turned back to Wendy. "So where should we start?"

Wendy suggested speaking to some of the people in the town about the morning of the attack, then to speak with the family of those who had died. She wanted to see if there was some sort of common denominator. She also walked around the town and took samples of the poison where it had stayed against walls or parts of the ground. No one in town thought anything of these spots since they were immune to it.

The small girl was amazingly competent with extracting the poison from the brick or wood and creating a beaker of it. They could use it to test against different things to try and find what kept these people immune.

It was a long process, there were so many people to talk to, so many things to try. The water, the type of fabric they used for clothing, the soap they used. Wendy even tried a swab of DNA from the innkeepers cheek. Though he seemed a little weirded out when Wendy asked him for it.

All of this spanned nearly a month and a half before Wendy finally declared the only thing left to try was food. She hadn't started with it because everything eaten here was eaten elsewhere. Gajeel was quick to correct her.

"The berries aren't, when we first came here they held some sort of festival for them. This mountain this village sits next to is the only place they grow." He told her.

Wendy looked surprised and to their surprise she pinched his arm. The big man jumped at the unexpected, but hardly terrifying assault. "What was that for?" He asked.

"That information could have saved us a lot of time and effort if you had given it sooner." She disappeared from the room they were in and when she came back she held a bowl of the berries. "This is the most likely reason these people are still alive. While I set up this experiment, go back and ask the families of those who died why they didn't eat the berries."

Levy and Gajeel did as she asked, visiting the few homes needed. The answers were usually one of two, they didn't like the berries or they were allergic. Upon their return they told Wendy what they had learned. The girl nodded, her pigtails swinging.

"That makes sense, well here it goes." She had crushed the berries into a liquid and added it to one of the vials of poison. At first it just sat on top of it, but slowly they could see the berry juice eating away at the poison, until none was left."

"What does that mean?" Levy asked.

Wendy smiled, "It means, eating these berries has given not only them, but those who visit an immunity to the poison. As soon as the poison enters the body it's killed by the enzymes in the berries, rendering it harmless."

Levy and Gajeel shared a look and then they smiled.

Wendy was nearly bouncing now. "We found it guys, we found the way to help Elfman and Evergreen. We found the cure!"

* * *

Yay! They found the cure! I'm sorry if this chapter was a little shorter and it really did have a lot of content from BTP but it was just at that point where they were all together and the conversations were still important to this one. I really hope you guys are still enjoying this one. :)

Anyway we're nearing the end of BTP and we'll be on to all original stuff soon! So I can plan ahead of time, what are some things you guys would like to see Gajeel experience in the "real world?" I'll do my best to incorporate as many as possible.

 **Piranha PK** : Lol you can come out of your corner now. Did you enjoy this one? I'm trying to make it so their relationship slowly develops but there's still that... edge. Am I doing this right?

 **Crimsonlink310** : Again, trying to make it so their relationship develops but there's still a... tenseness... I really hope I'm accomplishing a good dynamic between the two of them. I'm so glad that you're still here and still reviewing, still loving what I write. The next chapter is the pivotal one.

 **UserM24** : I'm sorry I didn't mean to embarrass you! Teasing is honestly one of my favourite things to write. It's so much fun and it's great to know one character is enjoying it while the other is being driven mad. For me in real life it's so awesome lol. The next chapter we finally get to the end battle with Alphonse (Erik) I'm excited to finally get to where I have free reign again and I'm not constantly checking BTP to make sure it all lines up. Still enjoying it so much though!

 **sassykitten1701** : You can quit crying for the duration of this chapter and then go back to it. lol I will try to get the next one up soon too.

 **RelentlessFlames** : Who screwed up Levy... That's the mystery isn't it? I guess we'll have to wait and find out ;) I'm glad you're enjoying it, that makes writing so much more fun and less like work, knowing you guys are waiting and loving it.


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